iPod wrecked startup drive

steven_lufc

steven_lufc

Registered
Hi there

I just got my 40gb iPod today, and amidst all the excitement I seem to have wrecked my main startup disk.

I transferred my entire 18gb iTunes library to my iPod via firewire and the dock. All went ok. I left the iPod charging for about half an hour on the dock while I was away from the mac, and then I started playing with the ipod, listening to tunes etc. I then decided that whilst I was listening to it, it might as well still be charging, so I put it in the dock whilst it was playing. My iMac did not like that. The macs drive started making an awful clicking sound, and when I tried to restart from the menu bar it wouldn't. I eventually pressed the reset button on the side. I also removed the ipod firewire cable. The mac won't now boot up. I zapped the pram, but no use. I tried to start up in single user and fsck, but it wouldn't. I used disk utility from the install disk to repair drive but no use. It came up with the following message:

Repairing disk for “disk0s9”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Invalid B-tree node size
Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)

Repair attempted on 1 volume
0 HFS volumes repaired
1 volume could not be repaired

The worrying thing is that the drive was called 'Panther', not 'diskOs9'. It won't mount and there is no info about it ie folders, files etc.

I managed to restart on my other partition by holding down the 'alt' key and startup and selecting new startup drive. I am now at a loss as what to do to either fix it, or rescue my data before doing a clean install. I'm just about to try techtool pro 4. Fingers crossed:)

Any ideas on how to fix, and what caused this in the first place

Thanks in advance
 
sorry forgot to say, my imac is a 600mhz G3, 768mb RAM, 40gb HD (2 partitions:30gb Panther, 10gb Backup) and running 10.3.2
 
Don't worry about the disk being called disk0s9, that is just the unix 'name' for that drive.

The clicking sounds are more disturbing, hope this isn't the case for you, but the last time I heard a hard drive 'click' is when it went out on me. Again, hope this isn't your problem.

Does your second partition have the tech tool pro 4 edrive on it?

If not then I would first try starting up from your OS X install cd and run the disk utility program from there first, then I'd do the tech tool pro 4.

I'm not sure if I would say that your iPod had anything to do with it, might just have been coincidence. I don't have a dock model iPod so I'm not much help there, maybe some other users have experiences with that particular setup.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.
 
If the dock was connected to the computer at the time, then it's possible that when you put the iPod in the dock something messed up. I know with mine, when I connect the iPod to the computer, the iPod 'locks', so maybe something weird happened. If you can't fix it easily, I would recommend just reinstalling the OS.
 
Disk Utility from the OS disk couldn't fix anything, and Techtool 4 found 32 bad blocks:
Surface Scan
The Surface Scan test reads data from every block on the drive to check the integrity of the drive surface.
34 Bad blocks found

Surface Scan <Failed! (-4)>

Tests Completed

This test checks your hard drive for bad blocks. Blocks are sections of your drive which hold data. It is not unusual for a drive block to eventually fail. All drives employ a mapping scheme which allows bad blocks to be "mapped out" so that they are no longer recognized by the file system. ATA drives should do this automatically unless their bad block table is full or the bad block is in a critical area of the drive.

If bad blocks are reported the only cure is to reinitialize the drive with the option to zero all data. First back up any data since this will erase the drive. Use Apple's Disk Utility or another disk formatter with all checking and mapping options enabled.

Surface Scan <Failed! (-4)>

and also:
Precheck Structures
This test checks the readability of the various volume structures.
Precheck Structures <Failed. Invalid Header. (-9007)>

I decided to just wipe and do a clean install instead of messing about.
My problem now is that I have an empty itunes library and 18gb of mp3s on my ipod. As soon as I connect my ipod, itunes will wipe everything off. Is there any way to stop it updating automatically before I plug it in? There must be!
Thanks
 
First, following a fresh OS install, I'm pretty sure itunes will ask you to confirm before making your mac your ipod's "Home" machine.

Second, I think that if you go into itunes prefs, you can disable the ipod auto-update.

Third, although you cannot copy music back from the ipod via itunes, you can access the files on the ipod via Terminal, and I *think* you should be able to copy them back using terminal (though you'll need to know some basic Unix browsing/copying commands). Because your files were lost in a crash, I wouldn't think it's piracy to just copy them back.

Also, any songs you bought from the Apple Music Store can be re-downloaded for free.
 
I'm not too bothered about putting the music back onto my mac at the moment, just don't wanna lose it from my ipod. I've had a look in itunes prefs and there is no section for ipods. If anyone can confirm that the mac will indeed ask if it is to be the 'home' machine I'll risk that. Is there any chance that the prefs for this are kept on the ipod, so the ipod will know not to update automatically? I'll do a quick Google and see what I come up with. Theres gotta be some way :)
 
You need to have your iPod connected to change the sync settings. In itunes with your iPod connected you will see a little button on the bottom right of the iTunes window that has a an iPod icon on it next to the EQ button. This brings up the iPod Preferences where you can select how and what get synced.
 
I found my answer in the itunes keyboard shortcuts help:

iPod shortcuts

Prevent iPod from automatically updating when you connect it to your computer:
Command-Option as you connect the iPod to your computer (hold the keys down until the iPod appears in the iTunes Source list).

Just to confirm, are the command and option keys are the 'apple key' and the 'alt' key? The 2 to the immediate left or right of the space bar?
 
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